3 Speed Balloon tire Rollfast?

[Oilit]

I bought four issues of American Bicyclist and Motorcyclist from 1954, and they are fascinating. There was a big push by the manufacturers to get tariff protection against imports, which had taken a large share of the market in just a few years. According to "Crisis in the American Bike Industry", an insert in the September issue, imports were less than 1% of the market before WWII, then went to 3.4% in 1950, 9.0% in 1951, 11.8% in 1952, 22.8% in 1953 and 40.0% in the first 6 months of 1954. It doesn't say where these imports are coming from, but there's lots of ads for English and European bikes, mostly 3 speeds.
There's also pictures of American bikes I've never heard of, including the Rollfast Century 88 shown on the cover of the July issue. Schwinn, AMF and Evans/Colson all built balloon tire three speeds but only for a year or two before the middleweights took over the market. By July 1954 this was already under way, the same issue has a 2 page ad from Schwinn with the Corvette front and center. So unless there were earlier ads I haven't seen, Rollfast was a little late to the party. Has anybody actually seen one of these?

 

[catfish]

Looks like a Strumy Archer set up.

 

[Adamtinkerer]

The US companies were a bit slow to follow the trends. Seems their first thought was to simply add 3 speed gear to their heavy ballooners. Like the original Jaguar. Seems like they weren't taking away import sales, so their plan B were the middleweights. DP Harris was a big sponsor of AB and Bicycle Journal, and generally had the cover ad on every issue.

 

[Oilit]

The US companies were a bit slow to follow the trends. Seems their first thought was to simply add 3 speed gear to their heavy ballooners. Like the original Jaguar. Seems like they weren't taking away import sales, so their plan B were the middleweights. DP Harris was a big sponsor of AB and Bicycle Journal, and generally had the cover ad on every issue.

If you think about it, they were already using 3 speed hubs on American-built lightweights, but in 1954 AMF quit building lightweights in favor of importing Hercules and I think Huffy started importing the Sportsman line (Raleigh) around the same time, and Rollfast started importing "Royal Crown" bikes (Phillips?), not to mention the bikes being brought in by Sears, Montgomery Ward and other big retail chains. In these articles they're complaining a lot about low-wage foreign competition which makes me think the post-war economic boom in this country was driving wages up. During the depression they probably didn't have to deal with that.

 

[GTs58]

So they combined a Buick and Olds mark and came up with Century 88?

 

[Oilit]

So they combined a Buick and Olds mark and came up with Century 88?

You would think if they were going to name it they would put the name on the chainguard. Maybe they were in a rush to get it out?

 

[Archie Sturmer]

I believe that I might have a ‘53-K boys 20” youths bike with that chain guard design, with the jet, (however, it is a single speed).

It had no decal on the down tube; perhaps unmarked frames allowed DP Harris to place just about any badge on its inventory.

 

[Oilit]

I believe that I might have a ‘53-K boys 20” youths bike with that chain guard design, with the jet, (however, it is a single speed).

Some of the earlier Schwinns (at least the New World) had the name on the down tube. Do you know if Rollfast did that?

 

[Mountain Trail Andy]

I bought four issues of American Bicyclist and Motorcyclist from 1954, and they are fascinating. There was a big push by the manufacturers to get tariff protection against imports, which had taken a large share of the market in just a few years. According to "Crisis in the American Bike Industry", an insert in the September issue, imports were less than 1% of the market before WWII, then went to 3.4% in 1950, 9.0% in 1951, 11.8% in 1952, 22.8% in 1953 and 40.0% in the first 6 months of 1954. It doesn't say where these imports are coming from, but there's lots of ads for English and European bikes, mostly 3 speeds.
There's also pictures of American bikes I've never heard of, including the Rollfast Century 88 shown on the cover of the July issue. Schwinn, AMF and Evans/Colson all built balloon tire three speeds but only for a year or two before the middleweights took over the market. By July 1954 this was already under way, the same issue has a 2 page ad from Schwinn with the Corvette front and center. So unless there were earlier ads I haven't seen, Rollfast was a little late to the party. Has anybody actually seen one of these?

View attachment 1368287

This was my perfect dream bike in the late 1950's....and still is. I always bugged my father for a bike with gears....He bought me the early Bendix red band 2 speed automatic on a new Snyder built bike. I managed to break it in short order. You can see a "Rollfast Century 88" bike as pictured in this advertisement in living color on page 117 of "Evolution of the Bicycle" Volume 2, copyright 1994, owned by Hugh Rosensweig, Cincinnati Ohio.

 

[Oilit]

This was my perfect dream bike in the late 1950's....and still is. I always bugged my father for a bike with gears....He bought me the early Bendix red band 2 speed automatic on a new Snyder built bike. I managed to break it in short order. You can see a "Rollfast Century 88" bike as pictured in this advertisement in living color on page 117 of "Evolution of the Bicycle" Volume 2, copyright 1994, owned by Hugh Rosensweig, Cincinnati Ohio.

Thank you, that was what I wanted to know! So there were at least four manufacturers that built balloon-tire three speed bikes!